


Little Bird

by noooone



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms
Genre: F/M, post-adwd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-09
Updated: 2019-10-09
Packaged: 2020-11-28 08:17:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20963387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noooone/pseuds/noooone
Summary: One-shot. Post-ADWD, Sandor takes Sansa from the Vale. She seeks to reward him for his valiant rescue, and he is not having it.





	Little Bird

**Author's Note:**

> I was thinking about parallels between Sansa's and Don Quixote's romanticization of chivalry...and somehow I ended up with an ASOIAF/Man of La Mancha crossover that no one asked for. This scene is based heavily (and at times quite literally) on the song "Aldonza" from Man of La Mancha. Gods help us. I'm so sorry.

Sansa knew he would come to save her one day, and he had. He’d turned up as a mystery knight in the tourney for Sweetrobin’s Winged Guard, recognized her, and stolen her away in the night.

They’d been riding for hours after their flight from the Vale when Sandor Clegane pulled his horse to a halt outside an empty crofter’s cabin. The cabin was sparse—just a straw pallet against the far wall and a brazier one side of the room. After seeing her inside the Hound left the cabin abruptly, presumably to see to his horse. Sansa lit the brazier in his absence. 

He’d saved her again. While as a child Sansa had been frightened of him, now she was intrigued by him. Sandor Clegane was overwhelmingly masculine with strong arms and sharp features. He was not handsome, but by now she knew that handsomeness had little bearing on a man’s quality of character. She’d dreamt of his kiss for years, retreating to the memory when she needed comfort. She resolved that she would reward her savior with a kiss, like the ones maidens gave to knights in songs.

When he returned, Sansa gathered her courage and walked up to him, as close as she dared. She stopped when her body was mere inches from his.

“Will you kiss me again now, ser?”

“Again?” A look of confusion crossed his face, which quickly turned to the anger she recalled from King’s Landing. “_Ser_?” She had touched a nerve. Until now, he had seemed so at peace compared to his former self. Still gruff, yes. And abrupt. And crude. His eyes had gentled, though. But now the Hound had returned.

“I am not ser. Have you forgotten what I am? A killer with no titles in the service of no one. Don’t make me something I’m not, girl.”

He gripped her upper arms tightly, fixing her with his heavy stare. “My mother left shortly after I was born, trying to get away from her monster of a husband and her monstrous firstborn.” 

_Where is he going with this?_ It seemed that provoking his ire was the only way that Sansa could get Sandor Clegane to tell her about his life. 

“I never blamed her. I'm sure she left hoping that I'd have the good sense to die before those bastards could hurt me. Then of course there's my father… I'm told that young squires can point to their knightly fathers with pride. Mine covered up all of Gregor’s evils in the service of holding onto the minor nobility granted to his father. That cunt died for it, and no one mourned him.”

The burnt side of the Hound’s mouth was twitching now. He was still quite close to her, still digging his blunt fingernails into her upper arms. She could see his gruesome scars in the soft light of the fire, and the intensity of his gaze. She lowered her eyes down to his chest.

“So of course I became, as befitted my delicate birth, the most loyal servant to the lordly scum of the earth.”

“You saved me from the mob in King’s Landing. You saved me from Lord Baelish in the Vale,” Sansa interjected, glancing back up at him. “You’re a truer knight than any I’ve known.”

He barked out a laugh. “And still she torments me! How should I be a _knight_?” He sneered down at her. “A knight has modest and courtly airs, and a virtue I somehow suspect that I lack. It's hard to remember your courtesies when you can’t recall how many men you’ve killed in the service of puffed up lords. The Elder Brother tried to make me dig a grave for every soul I’d taken, but I left the isle before I’d even gotten through the ones I recalled from the Greyjoy Rebellion.”

They’d not discussed what he’d been doing since he fled King’s Landing. She made a mental note to press him for more details when his mood improved. This memory seemed to pain him—she could feel his hands trembling now. She looked down at where his fingers wrapped tightly around her left arm. 

This was the wrong moment to remove her gaze from his face.

“Look at me. _Look at me_. Gods, won’t you look at me! Look at the dog reeking with sweat and wine!” She looked—she had been looking at him since he appeared in the Vale—and his expression changed to something feral as his grip on her arms loosened. He appraised her body in a manner that made her shiver. “And look at you, little bird. A woman now. A proper lady.”

_A bastard now_, she mused, trying to summon Alayne Stone’s bastard bravery. He’d begun to back her across the room, crowding her with his bulk. Her feet hit the pallet and she tripped backward onto it. He crawled on top of her like he had the night the Blackwater burned. He loomed over her, his breath hot on her face, his lank black hair framing her face, his visage twisted with rage.

“And you, little fool, want a _kiss _from a _knight_. But I’m just a dog. I’ll show you what dogs do to wolves,” he threatened.

“You won’t hurt me,” she countered.

“Take the clouds from your eyes and see me as I really am!” He was seething. And so, so close. He straddled her hips to hold her in place and they were chest-to-chest.

She thought he meant to take her. She could feel his manhood hard and hot against her stomach. Sansa knew now what he had meant when he’d told her he’d have a song from her. His body was fairly vibrating above her with tension. 

She was apprehensive about his mood, but still a little intrigued to see what’d he do next. So Sansa decided to urge him on. She reached her hand up to tangle in his hair. But with that the tension left him and he scrambled off of her to lie on his back next to her.

He inhaled deeply and sighed heavily. “You have shown me the sky, but what good is the sky to a creature who'll never do better than crawl? Of all the cruel devils who've badgered and battered me, you are the cruelest of all,” he croaked out.

He was staring at the ceiling. One hand rested on his chest, and she could she it trembling. She shifted up onto her elbow to get a better look at him and placed her other hand over his in the hopes of soothing him.

He turned his head to regard her, and she saw that the anger was gone from his eyes. Now he just looked sad. 

“Can’t you see what your gentle insanities do to me? Rob me of anger and give me despair. Blows and abuse I can take and give back again, but I can’t bear this tenderness. Please don’t torture me now with your knightly bullshit. I’m no one. I'm nothing! I'm not even the Hound anymore.”

“Sandor,” she said and leaned her head down to brush her lips to his. “You’re Sandor. Not a knight, but brave and strong.” His lips parted for hers, and soon he was returning her kiss. This was not the cruel kiss she remembered. It felt right though.


End file.
